Jorg Jansen

Composition Tips: Rule Of Thirds

One of the most famous and most useful tips is probably the rule of thirds. This ‘rule’ says that you need to place your subject on one of the lines or crossings when you divide your picture in 9 equal blocks with 2 horizontal and two vertical line.

While doing so you create a more interesting balance to your photo and gives a better focus to the moment.

Take a look at the photo below. You can see the whole photo of the snowboarder I took. Even with the fisheye I wasn’t able to get any closer, so to create the illusion of really following the snowboarder and ‘begin with him in the moment’, I decided to crop the photo in Lightroom after the photoshoot. Placing the snowboarders center on the intersection of the first horizontal and vertical line.

My personal taste is to put a moving object to the right on the left vertical and and object moving to the left on the right vertical. Same with up and down movement. But then again, there are always moment to break rules, so for sure try it for yourself.

After a little bit more tweaks after the cropping, the final photo looks like below.

If you have any questions about this technique or any other photography related stuff to ask, you know how to reach me, just leave a comment.